


Omnia Vincit Amor

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [68]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Acts of Kindness, Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Nervousness, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:55:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24500404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: Your panic attacks don’t really look like panic attacks, but they’re still not particularly easy to hide. Especially from Loki.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [68]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 10
Kudos: 202





	Omnia Vincit Amor

All things considered, it could have been worse. Probably. The world was burning. That was basically an undeniable fact at this point, and it was causing more than a little global anxiety. You’d had panic attacks from time to time when you were a kid, and that queasy, dizzying feeling of your heart pounding so fast it threatened to explode, it wasn’t nice. With your bad habit of paying the news more attention than was probably good for your mental health, you were certainly overdue for a panic attack. 

But Loki was here. In your apartment with you. Where the wall were thin enough that you could hear pretty much anything going on in any of the rooms. Obviously he knew you were human and mortal, and you knew that he loved you deliriously—why else would he even be here in the first place?—but the idea of having a full-on breakdown in earshot of Loki the Asgardian Fucking Prince was...a lot. 

Over the years, as you’d grown up and matured and adapted to the nonstop stream of horrors around you, your panic and anxiety had shifted a little bit. You didn’t often have the loud, gasping attacks that you had when you were little. Instead, everything in your head would go deadly quiet. When this modern anxiety had you in its grips, you couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but freeze in place and let everything wash over you. When it happened, you mostly just fixed your eyes on a spot across the room and willed it all to be over. Practically-speaking, freezing up like that wasn’t any less mortifying than dissolving into a panting mess, but it was quieter, at least.

It was kind of your own fault. You’d been scrolling through news sites that morning instead of getting to work on your actual work. Article after article about death and loss and hatred and fear, each one, of course, accompanied by a bevy of brightly-colored photographs of whatever grim situation you were reading about. Losing your cool was kind of inevitable. But once you got started, it was kind of like picking at a scab. Even knowing that you shouldn’t do it and that it’d hurt you, you couldn’t help but try to dig your nails in and keep tugging at it. 

When you felt your brain starting to grind to a halt, you drew in a breath and curled yourself up a little tighter. As things started to freeze inside you, this time they came with a bit of self-loathing. Because Loki was here. Didn’t he deserve someone who could exist in the world without freaking out? Or really, maybe he deserved someone who didn’t exist in this world at all. It hurt to wish him away, but you knew he often hated it here on Earth. He’d be happier somewhere else, where people were smarter and kinder and had no part in any of the human messes that plagued the Earth.

Dimly, you recognized when he entered the room. He’d been elsewhere for a long time, working in the kitchen or doing something in the bedroom, but, as though he could sense what was happening—or _not_ happening—in your head, there he was. You didn’t look up at him. Everything felt foggy, even that self-loathing. In a sick, guilty kind of way, you almost didn’t really mind these attacks. When you froze up like this, you couldn’t think about what was going on. You knew he was probably looking at you, but you couldn’t acknowledge him. 

When he disappeared again, some dull sensation of loss ached in your chest, but your brain didn’t focus on it for very long because it wasn’t focusing on anything for very long.

After a while, things started to lift. It was like your mind just went to sleep for a while, but now it was slowly waking up again. You always felt strange and groggy after something like this, which only lent further credence to the idea. You blinked a few times, slowly. It was like you were encased in sludge. Moving was difficult, and thinking wasn’t any better.

Loki was sitting at your feet and holding your hand. When you tried to pull away, he only held you tighter. He was doing something to your hand. You kept blinking at him, trying to make sense of what you were seeing, but nothing clicked until you smelled something sharp and familiar in the air. Nail polish? Was he painting your nails? That didn’t make sense, but what really did lately?

He looked up at you and smiled. The look on his face cleared away some of the fog, but you still weren’t sure what to say. “There she is. Are you alright?”

Words were hard. You swallowed a few times. “I...What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer for a few moments, and instead looked very carefully at whatever he was doing on your nail. Perfecting his brush strokes, maybe? He dipped the brush back into the bottle and moved to the next nail. “You were picking at your skin. I saw blood and I wanted to help.”

Oh, god. You tried a little harder to pull your hand away. That was another bad habit of yours: picking at the skin around your nails. Even when you were carefully-moisturized, the skin there seemed to dry out and beg you to pick it off. When you started something like that, it was hard to stop before the skin was even again, or before it started to hurt. You must have been doing it while you drifted, and of course since you weren’t paying attention to anything, you wouldn’t have noticed when it started to hurt. Loki didn’t need to see the bloody damage you’d done. It was bad enough that he sometimes saw the aftermath, the angry red skin that looked awful even though the smoothness satisfied some sick part of your brain.

But he didn’t let you go. He only tutted quietly, as though warning you not to smear the polish, and blew gently across your fingertips. “I saw this color in your collection. I hope you don’t mind.”

You looked down at your other hand. He’d completely finished painting those nails while you were lost in yourself, and you hadn’t even noticed. Your stomach clenched with horror—did you always get that out of it? Did Loki try talking to you first? Was he put off or disgusted by this?—but your brain finally made sense of the color. It was a rich emerald green. You didn’t wear it often because, when you worked from the office, your boss tended to side-eye people who wore anything other than the standard pink or red, but you liked looking at it. There was a slight golden shimmer in the paint as well. You felt yourself smile. Of course he would have gone for this one.

“I’m sorry. I—“ You wanted to apologize for being such a mess, but he cut you off with a sharp look.

“Do _not_ apologize to me.” Though he spoke to you with the same underlying affection as always, there was a firmness in his voice that left no room for protest. He held your gaze. There was a fire in his eyes that surprised you. Without looking away from you, he blew on your nails one more time and then folded your hand in his. “You have _nothing_ to apologize for. I am glad that I am here. I love you. I will protect you. If sometimes that means I have to hold your hand to protect you from yourself, it is an honor to do it.” He kissed your knuckles with a tenderness that made your eyes sting. “Your people are going through a _lot_. Your world is going through a _lot_. But I am here. And I will be here until every last creature on Earth comes to drag me away. Or until you ask me to go.”

It was too much. You felt a tear slip out of your eye and quickly tried to wipe it away with your free hand. How did you ever get so lucky? How did you get _here_? Loki was still gazing up at you with a determined adoration in his eyes even though you regularly checked out of your body completely. And he was promising to stay? You finally had to close your eyes, but you shook your head at him. “I don’t want you to go.” Even to your own ears, your voice sounded so weak, so small. Something about his touch, though, kept you from spiraling off into a fresh round of self-loathing. Maybe you were weak and small right now. But he was sitting there at your feet swearing loyalty to you anyway. 

He started to shift, but before you could really react, he only raised himself up onto his knees so he could cup your face in his palms. He let you hide there behind your closed eyes while he kissed your forehead. Your nose. Your chin. Then he rested his forehead against yours and patted your cheekbones with his thumbs. “I don’t _want_ to go.”

Not much else was said between you. He stayed there for a long time, just like that, offering you the strength and warmth from his body and his touch, and you braced yourself against him to try to recover. Later, he might tease you about owing him money for your manicure, and you might jokingly ask him about your toenails, but for right now, there was only the two of you and the quiet warmth that your prince offered. You were safe.


End file.
